Upcycled Doily Bunting / Garland | TUTORIAL

What's the difference between bunting and garland? I asked. Silly me, I didn't know. Here I was thinking they were the exact same thing but then why have different names? Yes, so turns out they're not really the same...

Definition-wise, bunting is usually reminiscent of hanging flags – hence typifies the repetitive triangular or rectangular cotton fabric shapes hung upon a piece of string or fabric...Garlands on the other hand, by definition, were usually a wreath of flowers or leaves worn on the head (think Titania from Midsummer Night’s Dream) by someone to be honoured, quite often competition winner’s in races, for example. (Rapunzel's Retreat)

Even with that cleared up I still don't know whether to call this bunting or a garland. I suppose though, the doilies do resemble flags so this should be called bunting but garlands nowadays can also be stringed anything not just flowers. Call it whatever you please, I'll call it both.

I've actually accumulated several "sets" of doilies. I call them sets because they'll be more than one and all matching. I know sets consist of two but still. Most of them were given to me by my mom, others by my grandma and some I've found at thrift stores and fleamarkets. These particular ones were my moms given to her by her sister who handmade them, decades ago. They used to adorn our living room couches and end tables when I was a kid.

2. Take your ribbon and leave as long of a tail as you want to hang. Remember to leave room to tie. I left 13" of ribbon. Once it's tied it leaves about 10" hanging. I cut the edge of the ribbon as you can see because I didn't want to leave it a plain straight edge.

3. Take pins and stick the doily halves to the ribbon only up about half way so that you will be able to fold down the other half of the ribbon to cover the cut raw edges of the doilies.

4. Tack (baste stitch) all the doilies down. Then sew (tight straight stitch) the upper half of the ribbon down covering over the doily raw edges. For this you could have also used bias tape instead (make your own or buy it) or even lace. Anything that already has sealed edges to it works perfectly for this.